Dalia Dorner Announces Israeli Presidential Race Bid

Dalia Dorner, a retired justice of the Israeli High Court, has announced her candidacy for election as Israel’s next president.

If her candidacy is accepted, Dorner will be the second woman to run for the post and the only female candidate so far in the 2014 campaign, according to a report on Feb. 13 by Army Radio.

To be registered as candidates, applicants need the signatures of at least 10 lawmakers of the Israeli Knesset, whose members elect the president. In Israel, the title is largely ceremonial.

The Army Radio report did not say whether Dorner, the 79-year-old head of the Israel Press Council, has collected the signatures.

According to The Times of Israel, Dorner announced her candidacy during a lecture at the Technion in Haifa. ”I decided it was time for Israel to have a female president,” she said. “Even if I’m not chosen, it will open the door for future generations of candidates.”

Elections to determine the successor of President Shimon Peres are scheduled to take place in June.

Dan Shechtman, the 2011 Nobel Prize winner for chemistry, also said he would run, as did former Knesset speaker Reuven Rivlin and ex-defenSe minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer.

The first woman to run for the post was Colette Avital, a former diplomat and lawmaker, in 2007. Shimon Peres won the election.

Dalia Itzik, at the time Knesset Speaker, served as acting president for several short periods in 2006 and 2007 during a criminal investigation of then-President Moshe Katzav.